Here is someone working for the ABC, from a Labor background as Hawke’s press secretary, who has written about the rise and fall of a Labor Prime Minister with all the distortions and omissions worthy of the most disingenuous right wing hack.

Making an enemy of a party on which your supporters agree on practically every issue is at best an empty gesture and at worst will make the Greens the anti-establishment party they clearly crave but don’t deserve.

Those who think the election results across the country on Saturday showed the inevitable swinging back of the pendulum following the election of the Rudd government, must have been squinting at them with one eye.

Minor parties like the Greens never like to face up to it, but their development is often less dependent on their own initiatives than what goes on in the major parties. The Greens have especially been influenced by developments in Labor.